2011

DENE HAWKEN: THE ART OF ENTERTAINING CULTURE2 to 12 February 2011

The Art of Entertaining Culture is a multi-media exhibition by Dene Hawken, for the award of Master of Fine Art. There are three reference points to this exhibition that incorporate photography, the moving imageand sound.This research investigates the 'base note' of relationships both personal and environmental by way of cross-cultural commonalities, mirrored identities and belongingness."It is within the context of one’s cultural aesthetics, denominational theatrics or communal interactive environments that we are able to acknowledge and communicate our intimate realities." - Dene Hawken

IMPRINT: STUDENTS BY STUDENTS - A PHOTO ESSAY DOCUMENTING THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE ON CAMPUS16 February to 5 March 2011

In 2010 and early 2011, a group of students explored photographically all the campuses of the University of Newcastle. With a host of digital cameras, these students engaged with other students at study and leisure and lent cameras to all. The result is a photo documentary of us by us, the students of Callaghan, Ourimbah and Port Macquarie campuses, very diverse but bonded by a commonality—our studies and importantly our social interactions with one another.Curated by Emily Hitchcock, UNISS - Industry Connect Scholar 2010. Exhibition sponsored by the Equity and Diversity Unit of the University of Newcastle.

JOHN BARNES: RECONNECTION - AN EXPLORATION OF AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE BEYOND HISTORY AND MYTH9 to 26 March 2011

“It is out of this process, the slow and sometimes painful development of some kind of relationship to place, an understanding of which might ultimately settle on being a kind of uneasy peace that becomes the material of artmaking.” - Geoffrey LevitusThese paintings are a visual exploration of the landscape of my experience, framed within the historical context of Australian landscape depiction in non-indigenous art since British colonisation.They result from a sensual, intellectual, aesthetic and emotional engagement with the land: blurring distinctions between abstraction and representation while questioning the validity of landscape in contemporary arts practice.

A collaborative drawing project between the Manukau School of Visual Arts in South Auckland, New Zealand, and the School of Design, Communication and Information Technology at The University of Newcastle, Australia.Weeds spread through dispersal. Their seeds are carried on the wind, on riverlets of rain or in the stomachs of birds into unexpected and sometimes distant places where they germinate, grow and eventually seed again. It’s this feral quality that we like about weeds, the fact that they are never sown but continually multiply, that they thrive without nurture and grow where they are not wanted.Drawing too has a feral quality. It pops up everywhere, often outside any discipline or category. Drawing attaches itself to other practices, to science, to literature and to architecture where it generates new and hybrid forms. Drawing flows from centres to inhabit peripheries. It is a location and a direction. - Grant Thompson, Head of School, Manukau School of Visual Arts

Two artists embark on a river trip that results in a cautionary tale of irrigation, farming, and the relationships between people and the life of river systems.Ramonda Te Maiharoa and Jane Zusters journeyed from the Murray river mouth at Goolwa to the Hume Dam photographing their impressions of this ravaged wonderland as a cautionary tale facing their Canterbury rivers where the New Zealand government is considering fast tracking irrigation schemes for more intensive farming. Settler culture has created a vision in which the water of the Murray has been stored, regulated and allocated for human consumption and economic production. The relationships between people, water, clay, reeds, insects, yabbies, birds, grasses, trees and the needs of the river have been discounted. The resulting over allocation of water and destruction of freshwater ecology demands we rethink our water management, law and policy.

The University Gallery is pleased to present a selection of images taken from rare photographs of Mahatma Gandhi, courtesy of the Consulate General of India in Sydney.Gandhi was an unsurpassed political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He has long captured the popular imagination through his moral philosophy of tolerance, brotherhood of all religions, resistance to tyranny through non-violence, and simple living.“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world—that is the myth of the atomic age—as in being able to remake ourselves.” - M.K. Gandhi

The Jennie Thomas Travelling Art Scholarship provides an opportunity for students to gain primary research and inspiration during their Honours year of study. This award was implemented in 2003 and is given to students who have a clear vision of their practice and a passion for what they do. The 2011 finalists are Abbey Cecil, Leasha Craig, Michelle Gearin, Amy Hill, Rachael Ireland and Sylvia Ray.The joint recipients of the 2011 Scholarship were: Abbey Cecil and Rachel Ireland.IMAGE Rachel Ireland The Enchanted Bedroom #5 2011, dye sublimation print on ivory satin fabric, 90 x 90 cmDOWNLOAD the exhibition catalogue pdf (1 MB)

FRANCESCA BELL: ILLUSTRATIONS FOR MOTHER MOTH25 May to 11 June 2011

‘The name like a mystic signature, a haunting windblown tune, reached her hearing, and she heard the spider’s royal name in purple and gold: Payat L’Rishiya.’Created for the book Mother Moth, Francesca Bell’s illustrations use a lacquering technique, building from rough sketch to a patina of depth and brilliance. First thoughts, false starts, slips of the pen are all there. Bell’s creations reflect the book’s sense of interior depth and dissolved boundary. The pictures grew the way fairy tales grow, reinforcing some elements, sending others to the shadows.

GRAHAM MARCHANT: OUTSIDE INTERIORS AND INSIDE GARDENS25 May to 11 June 2011

Gardens, manicured spaces, the interplay of light between the interior and the exterior and the meticulous rendering of patterned detail are the primary concerns of Graham Marchant.Comprising drawing, painting and printmaking, this exhibition shows Marchant’s fascination with both his subject matter and the challenge of painting—organising the composition, modifying the drawing, attending to the orchestration of tone and line. Individual works spawn variants across different media, providing ongoing scope for redefinition and continuing development.

An artistic venture of personal discoveries has culminated in the exhibition, Conversation in Landscape. The artwork has evolved from Devine’s personal experiences and a cultural ambiguity emanating from geographical displacement, having moved from North-East England to Newcastle, Australia.Devine’s painting practice is tempered with personal histories and issues of isolation that are depicted through interpretations of industrial landscapes. The Corvus paintings and studies form a symbolic representation allowing a discourse fusing issues of displacement, identity, loss, and melancholy. The painted landscape brings forth what he terms the ‘post-industrial sublime’, which he covets—romanticising a troubled conscience.The Sense of Embrace, Sense of Place installation unifies an intimate narrative that examines his perceptions of familial disintegration. The conversations, narrative, and nomadic sensibility are all woven into the materiality, methodology and composition of the exhibition, Conversation in Landscape.

IMAGE Michael Aird Vincent Brady leads a protest march from the series Everybody is Important: Elders, Leaders and Other Important People, Brisbane, 9 December 1987, inkjet print, courtesy the artistDOWNLOAD the exhibition catalogue pdf (2 MB)

ZOO AiR: TWENTY ARTISTS FROM THE 2011 ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM AT TARONGA ZOO20 July to 13 August 2011

Walk with the animals, talk with the animals and paint with the animals … twenty well-known Australian artists were set loose in Sydney’s iconic Taronga Zoo to get in touch with their wild side and to celebrate the wonder of the animal world.This is the third Artists in Residence program hosted by Taronga Zoo and the project continues to evolve in ways that surprise and delight the many visitors and staff at the zoo. In large part it is due to the wonderful generosity of our participating artists and the fascination of zoo visitors with how artists work. The many different and innovative approaches taken by the artists towards their subjects are a tribute to the diversity of Taronga itself. Taronga Zoo is also part of a long artistic tradition as it is located on the shores of Sirius Cove, adjacent to the artists’ camp made famous by Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton through their lasting images of Curlew Cove and Sydney Harbour.For most artists the act of creating and making work is individual and becomes innate over years of practice. One of the great benefits of the Residency program is that the public and zoo staff have the opportunity to observe these strange artistic creatures roaming free, plying their trade. The artists in turn go behind the scenes and view different animals at close quarters, meet the Keepers and share their love of and experiences with the animals.The University Gallery is delighted to be able to present another exciting exhibition for ZOO AiR 2011 in conjunction with the Taronga Foundation. Now in its eleventh year, the Taronga Foundation has been committed to preserving and conserving endangered species both through zoo-based programs and in the animals’ native habitats. The work generated through the Artists in Residence program this year will be on exhibition at the University Gallery from 20 July until 13 August. Donated works will then be exhibited at the Byron Kennedy Hall in Sydney’s Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park, from Friday 19 August until Sunday 21 August. The auction, by Bonhams Australia, will be held on the afternoon of Sunday 21 August with all proceeds supporting the Taronga Foundation’s conservation projects. For information visit www.taronga.org/art

TESSA MORRISON: ISAAC NEWTON AND THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON17 August to 3 September 2011

Isaac Newton’s unpublished manuscripts reveal that for over fifty years he had an interest in the Temple of Solomon. He wrote prolifically on the rituals performed in the Temple, its significance and its meaning. In one of these manuscripts known by its called name, Babson Ms 0434, which is written in Latin with some Greek and Hebrew, he reveals an excellent knowledge of architecture and an interest in aesthetics. He described the Temple in detail making it possible to reconstruct his model.This exhibition is a result of Dr Tessa Morrison’s Australian Research Council Post-Doctrinal Fellowship. She translated Babson Ms 0434 into English and recreated Newton’s reconstruction of the Temple in the architectural 3D modelling program Archicad. This resulted in the breathtaking model at the centre of this exhibition. Newton perceived this square model of the Temple to be the microcosm of the macrocosm - a hieroglyph of the universe. Yet the manuscript was written at the same time as he was writing his most famous work the Principia in which he revealed that the planetary orbs were oval. Travelling through this model of the Temple, its structure, its symmetry and its proportional elegance is to glimpse into the mind of Isaac Newton.IMAGE Tessa MorrisonNewton's Temple of Solomon 2011, wood, MDF and ABS plastic, 2.2 x 2.2 mDOWNLOAD the exhibition catalogue pdf (926 KB)

MICHAEL OSTWALD: DREAMS OF MODERNITY17 August to 3 September 2011

The exhibition Dreams of Modernity is made up of two projects; White Space: From Le Corbusier to Meier and Reviewing Neutra: Architecture Through a Dark-Adapted Eye. Both are research-by-design projects produced by Michael Ostwald and his team - Romi Mcpherson, Lachlan Seegers and Michael Dawes. In White Space, five houses by Le Corbusier and five by Richard Meier are presented and analysed from both a programmatic and spatial perspective. In Reviewing Neutra, architect Richard Neutra’s famous Kaufman Desert House is revisited to visualise the impact of experimental psychology on both the development of his ideas and on the design of this particular house. Where White Space celebrates the myth of an enlightened, scientific way of living, Reviewing Neutra is about the darker side of shaping human experience.

Elephant: Art and Science is an exhibition to support Andrew Howell’s PhD research into wild and captive elephants.This diverse body of work explores the elephant as subject for illustrations and artwork, both as purely creative interpretations of the subject and as developed veterinary science reference images.Howell’s artwork directly contributes to the collaborative scientific study involving researchers at University of Sydney, Australia, Fort Worth Zoo (Texas) USA, the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center (Texas), Washington State University, Missouri State University and the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation. He has a focus on the development of illustrative reference images for use in the Body Condition Scoring of captive Asian Elephants, and hopes to see this reference system developed for both wild and captive populations of endangered and non-endangered species.

MARTIN PIERIS: SERENDIP TO SRI LANKA - A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY28 September to 15 October 2011

In his exegesis and accompanying exhibition for his Master of Philosophy, Martin Pieris explores the influences that have informed his approach to photography, reflecting on the Sri Lankan contemporary environment, as well as his awareness of this culture that has emerged from a 2,500 year recorded history.His work is not an analysis of this history, but rather an analysis of his response as a Sri Lankan born artist to the history evident in the contemporary Sri Lankan environment, society and culture.His research may at one level be described as an archaeological dig into these layers of influence - layers that include notions of an indigenous view of the untouched landscape, cultural influences originating from the Indian mainland, the effect of invasion and habitation by the Portuguese, Dutch and British and finally contemporary life on the island that sees the synthesis of these diverse elements.On another level, the exhibition becomes a self-portrait made up of a mosaic of experiences and relationship to place.IMAGE Martin Pieris Anuradhapura 2010, digital fibre print, 60 x 60 cmDOWNLOAD the exhibition catalogue pdf (2 MB)

ANNEMARIE MURLAND: STRUCTURE BECOMES IMAGE28 September to 15 October 2011

Materials matter to artist Annemarie Murland. It is seen to be at the juncture of the co-dependence and the potential of the materials quality and characteristics which merge to find and give form as works of art. Through a series of methodologies that are the result of the artist’s practice-led research, this body of work questions how structure becomes image through an observation of praxis. Infused by a merger of substance and material, the works of art present as independent objects that re-articulate the art as language binary. The artist’s visual language continues to develop sensory aesthetics through elaborate schemas that infer meaning through the physicality and placement of artworks. Arranged according to site, the body of work articulates a renewed sense of identity through it’s relationship with the gallery space, where a variety of pictorial arrangements challenges traditional, spatial relationships.IMAGE Annemarie Murland Tracking Shadow 2011, oil on canvas, 90 x 70 x 8 cmDOWNLOAD the exhibition catalogue pdf (1.1 MB)

HONOURS 2011The University Gallery 19 October to 5 November 2011Watt Space 26 October to 13 November 2011

Exhibitions for the Honours year of the Fine Art Degree at the University of Newcastle.

Emily Windon’s research for the award of Doctor of Philosophy (Fine Art) has examined the changing vision of modernism and the place of the female body within the new modernist discourse. Central to this has been the role of the camera in medically documenting the female body, in particular the hysterical female body.Drawing links between modernist thinking and the changing face of technology, she sees hysteria as a condition that contextualizes the female body and mind. This exhibition is a presentation of a journey through history, through hysteria, towards liberation into a final state of freedom.The images here present a world mirrored by the camera lens, a world that inverts life into death and reaches for hope through an embracing of hysteria and the paring back of reality into a space of desire, ritual and jouissance.

WAAP 2011: THE WOLLOTUKA ACQUISITIVE ART PRIZEOurimbah Campus: 23 to 26 November 2011The University Gallery: 30 November to 9 December 2011

Featuring traditional and contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from around the region and interstate, the Wollotuka Acquisitive Art Prize of $5,000 will be awarded to the entry that best reflects the stories and experiences of the artist. The Interrelate Family Services Acquisitive Prize of $1,000 will be awarded to the entry that best depicts Indigenous family and community connections. A People’s Choice Award will also be given. Artworks will be for sale.